Can Norway Build on Their Massive Win in Northern Ireland?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been hard to judge international teams considering that the majority didn’t play a game for nearly a year. Norway claimed a 2-1 victory in Malta in November 2019 and then had to wait ten months before a narrow defeat against Austria, although the Nordic side then went to Northern Ireland and enjoyed a 5-1 victory.
Erling Haaland and Alexander Sorloth helped themselves to a brace in that game, with Mohamed Elyounoussi also chipping in with a goal and this sort of firepower could be useful against a Serbian team who appeared at the most recent World Cup and were slightly unfortunate not to make it from the group stage.
Norway are managed by Lars Lagerback who is a vastly experienced operator who was in charge of the Swedish national team for nine years and was also successful when managing Iceland between 2011 and 2016. They have a very good chance of going through.
Can Erling Haaland Make the Difference for Norwegians?
Key players can clearly make a difference in these games and the most talented attacking player will be Erling Haaland who will hope to fire his country to their first major championship since turning out at Euro 2000. Indeed, that remains their only appearance at a European Championship and the country hope that this will change for next summer.
Haaland was tearing it up for Red Bull Salzburg last season before transferring to Borussia Dortmund midway through the campaign and the young and powerful forward is now aiming to fire an expectant nation to glory, with the 20-year-old scoring thirteen goals in fifteen games for Dortmund last season.
What Should We Expect From Serbia?
Serbia have a better pedigree when it comes to qualifying for recent major tournaments and they were unlucky not to come through the group stage of the 2018 World Cup after being drawn with Brazil and Switzerland. However, they have never made it to the European Championships since becoming Serbia and will feel this is a fantastic opportunity.
The Eagles have some talented players in the squad including Real Madrid forward Luka Jovic, while Aleksandar Mitrovic is a regular source of goals and the striker is now back playing in the Premier League for Fulham, with 35 goals scored in 57 matches for his country.
Dusan Tadic, Adem Ljajic and Filip Kostic are also experienced operators in midfield, while captain Aleksandar Kolarov has a wealth of experience in defence and the majority of the squad are playing their football at a high level domestically.
Serbia’s recent results haven’t been great, although they lost 3-1 away to a solid Russian side before drawing 0-0 with Turkey, so they have had some tougher fixtures than their opponents.
What Do The Bookies Expect to Happen?
The bookies aren’t sure which way to call this match and Norway have the slight edge when it comes to having shorter odds. However, it must be stressed that their price of 2.60 to win the game compared to Serbia’s 2.80 simply takes into account that the former have home advantage although whether that amounts to much remains to be seen.
Ultimately, the bookmakers aren’t sure which way to call the clash and it’s hard to actually price up a game when you don’t have a lot of recent game data, with the draw trading at 3.10 and you might argue that this is the value price rather than backing either side for the game.
What Are the Best Bets for This Match?
We are going to tentatively side with Serbia on the Asian Handicap betting market and they will really feel that keeping Erling Haaland is the key to ensuring that they go through to playing the winner of Scotland or Israel. There’s a big prize at stake for the winner of this match.
We might also expect Serbia to be defensively solid and we’ll back Under 2.0 Goals as our other bet, with a 1-0 win to Serbia looking the potential bet on the correct score market.